Lost, Found, Searching—What Does Your Internet Search History Say About You?

Zoë Sharp

At the moment, as well as the usual last-minute panic over the upcoming Christmas period, I am neck-deep in writing the latest book. It's a follow-up to last year's DANCING ON THE GRAVE, featuring CSI Grace McColl and DC Nick Weston. And yes, that book was supposed to be a standalone, but the reception was such it's now part one of a Lakeland-set trilogy.

So far, I’m cautiously optimistic that the story reads well. It’s certainly flowing well but, as every writer knows, that can change as easily and quickly as turning off a tap.

A quick glance at my browser shows I have about eleven tabs open. This brought to mind a meme I saw ages ago that said something to the effect that you know you’re a crime writer if a trawl through your Internet Search History would be likely to get you arrested.

So, as it’s nearly the end of term and we’re allowed to bring in games and wear our own clothes, I thought I’d put this to the test. (Well, literarily rather than literally.)

Obviously, I’m ignoring pages such as my email program and social media (where’s the fun in that) but apart from that, first up is a page from Scientific American which answers the question (surely on everyone’s lips) ‘After a person’s pulse and breathing stop, how much later does all cellular metabolism stop?’ The article which follows is penned by Arpad Vass at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The short answer, in case you’re interested, is between four and ten minutes.

Next is a page from a company called Aftermath, who are US ‘specialists in trauma cleaning and biohazard removal’ which has a very interesting article on ‘Dead Body Smell / Six Common Decomposition Smells’. Go on, admit it—you really want to go and take a look at this, don’t you?

The only thing that mildly alarmed me was the banner picture with this piece, which was of an attractive-looking woman. Then I thought, well, what suitable illustration do you use…?

Oh, and in case you were wondering, along with the usual suspects, such as the odour of strong faeces and rotting fish, are the slightly more surprising smells likened to garlic (dimethyl disulphide and trisulfide) and mothballs (indole).

Next, and this is not strictly there for research purposes but because it was entertaining, is the homepage of The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest ‘where “www” means “wretched writers welcome”’.

For those of you unfamiliar with this, it is an annual prize awarded by the English Department at San Jose State University in the name of Edward Bulwer-Lytton—he of the famous opener much beloved of Snoopy’s literary efforts:

It challenges entrants to ‘compose opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels.’  This year’s Grand Prize winner was Maxwell Archer from Mt Pleasant, Ontario, Canada:

‘Space Fleet Commander Brad Brad sat in silence, surrounded by a slowly dissipating cloud of smoke, maintaining the same forlorn frown that had been fixed upon his face since he’d accidentally destroyed the phenomenon known as time, thirteen inches ago.’

A worthy winner, as I’m sure you will agree…

My next open tab contains the results of an image search for gypsy and Romani symbols. This includes the flag, which denotes the green of the open fields below the blue of the open sky and the red circle at the centre is both a Hindu chakra and the sixteen-spoke wheel of the traditional gypsy caravan, denoting movement.

Next in line is a piece in the Washington Post about a new technique for recovering serial numbers that have been filed away. This article dealt with serial numbers where it was not possible to recover them by means of acid-etching techniques and went into detail on the process of Electron Backscatter Diffraction. This, apparently, can detect the damage to change to the underlying material beneath an embedded serial number, even after the outer layers of metal have been removed, and retrieve a complete number in less than an hour.

Next, a page from the UK National River Flow Archive concerning a particular broad-crested weir just north of Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria. I wanted to know not only about the construction of the weir itself, but its likely water flow characteristics. This led to quite a few other pages, including a full report on various different types of weirs at a website called The Constructor, entitled ‘What is a weir? Types of weirs and flow over weirs.’ There, I could find out about the types of weir likely to be most dangerous to swimmers or canoeists.

So, when people ask me what I’m reading at the moment, I usually say, “Rather a lot of non-fiction…” What’s on your TBR pile in the non-fiction line?

This week’s Word of the Week is hok-hornie-mush, which according to a book that’s open on my desktop with the catchy title of ROMANO LAVO-LIL WORD BOOK OF THE ROMANY OR ENGLISH GYPSY LANGUAGE, means a policeman.